Total Articles: 3
Ninth Circuit Interprets Learned Professional Exemption
The State of Washington's Department of Social and Health Services employ social workers, whom the agency classifies as exempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The state relies on the "learned professional exemption," which means "an employee whose primary duties require 'knowledge of an advanced type in a field of science or learning customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction.'” 29 C.F.R. § 541.300(a)(2)(I).
A Broad Array of College Courses Does Not a Course of Specialized Instruction Make
A social worker required to hold a bachelor’s degree in social or human services, behavioral science or an allied field does not necessarily qualify as a “learned professional,” properly exempt from overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Ninth Circuit recently held in Solis v. State of Washington DSHS (No. 10-35590 (Sept. 9, 2011).
Using The Duck Test For Professional Employees.
When classifying their employees for overtime purposes under federal and state wage-hour laws, employers often rely on the equivalent of the "Duck Test": the job's title sounds professional and its duties require expertise and a high degree of skill it sounds and looks like a professional job, and so it must qualify for the professional exemption even if most of its occupants lack advanced degrees. In other words, they assume that when a high degree of skill and years of experience are needed to perform the position's essential tasks, and the position requires either advanced education or long years of experience, the occupants can be treated as exempt professionals under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
